The Beauty of Physics: Patterns, Principles, and Perspectives

A. R. P. Rau

Connects seemingly disparate phenomena across different areas of physics

Links ideas and themes in physics to other disciplines

Broad readership, including non-science university students and intellectually-curious lay readers

The Beauty of Physics: Patterns, Principles, and Perspectives

A. R. P. Rau

Description

The beauty of physics lies in its coherence in terms of a few fundamental concepts and principles. Even physicists have occasion to marvel at the overarching reach of basic principles and their ability to account for features stretching from the microscopic sub-atomic world to the cosmological expanses of the Universe. While mathematics is its natural language, physics is mostly about patterns, connections, and relations between objects and phenomena, and it is this aspect that is emphasized in this book.

Since science tries to connect phenomena that at first sight appear widely different, while boiling them down to a small set of essential principles and laws, metaphor and analogy pervade our subject. Consider the pendulum, its swing from one extreme to the other often invoked in social or economic contexts. In molecular vibrations, such as in the CO2 molecule, the quantum motions of electrons and nuclei are metaphorically the pendulums. In electromagnetic radiation, including the visible light we observe, there are not even any concrete material particles, only electric and magnetic fields executing simple harmonic motion. But, to a physicist, they are all "just a pendulum".

The selection of topics reflects the author's own four-decade career in research physics and his resultant perspective on the subject. While aimed primarily at physicists, including junior students, this book also addresses other readers who are willing to think with symbols and simple algebra in understanding the physical world around us. Each chapter, on themes such as dimensions, transformations, symmetries, or maps, begins with simple examples accessible to all while connecting them later to more sophisticated realizations in more advanced topics of physics.

The Beauty of Physics: Patterns, Principles, and Perspectives

A. R. P. Rau

Author Information

A.R.P. Rau is a theoretical physicist who has worked primarily in atomic physics and quantum information. He has spent time in universities and research institutions in Australia, Chile, France, Germany, and India.

The Beauty of Physics: Patterns, Principles, and Perspectives

A. R. P. Rau

Reviews and Awards

"[Rau] is obviously well read in many fields outside physics and presents provocative ideas, many of which will be novel even to professional physicists... Recommended." --Choice

The Beauty of Physics: Patterns, Principles, and Perspectives

A. R. P. Rau

From Our Blog

A previous piece ('Patterns in Physics') discussed alternative 'representations' in physics as akin to languages, an underlying quantum reality described in either a position or a momentum representation. Both are equally capable of a complete description, the underlying reality itself residing in a complex space with the very concepts of position/momentum or wave/particle only relevant in a 'classical limit'. The history of physics has progressively separated such incidentals of our description from what is essential to the physics itself.

The aim of physics is to understand the world we live in. Given its myriad of objects and phenomena, understanding means to see connections and relations between what may seem unrelated and very different. Thus, a falling apple and the Moon in its orbit around the Earth. In this way, many things 'fall into place' in terms of a few basic ideas, principles (laws of physics) and patterns.